Terracotta trust and Ebony Rage
by DinosaurEyes
Summary: Or, Five times Hank wanted to punch someone in the face and the one time he wanted to punch everyone in the face. Success rates are varied.


Five times Hank was absolutely furious with someone and one time he was absolutely furious at everyone.

1.

It's a lady named Tia Alma who looks after him. Small, tiny and Spanish, she can barely speak English. Hank loves her though, because the first time she saw his feet she only tsked absently and said something about her son and typhoons under her breath. She and Hank spend almost all of their time together – he teaches her English and she teaches him cooking and Spanish. His parents, noted scientists both, are gone too often to care that their son is running around the house without socks on and babbling.

(Of course, that would imply that his parents cared, and they haven't, not after Hanks blood test came back without showing any specific mutations – just a freak accident, and nothing all that interesting. It's a truth Hank lives with everyday the first time he realizes he can't remember what his father's eyes look like or the way his mother smelled)

He's sitting in his biology class when he hears them come in. Automatically, his head ducks down and his legs stop swinging – the chairs are too short for his body, meant for seniors much taller than him. The sharp sound of mocking laughter hits his ears and he flinches a little. With the instinct born in every bully's victim, he knows they're talking about him. Flushing darkly on the back of his neck, he stares forward. The bully of this weeks name is Derek. He's small and skinny, but he's also the son of the richest person in the area. Slightly rat faced and neurotic, it's silently accepted that he is going to be the face of the graduating class, simply by virtue of his money. Not that its new of course, even at the tender age of eleven Hank understands the importance of money.

It's just another one of the things that sets him apart from the others. Of course, it wouldn't really matter anyway, not in the long run.

(The long run being Hank is a monster and his parents can't stand him)

The boys on the other side of the room let out another sharp laugh. Hanks eyes flit to them unconsciously, and what he sees makes his blood run cold. Derek's hunched over and saying 'Ay Mi Pequeno Osa' he's saying it in a high pitched grating voice. Hank clenches his pencil so hard it snaps – little bear is Tia Alma's nickname for him. They are making fun of Tia Alma. The world goes black for a few seconds. Dimly, Hank realizes that he's launched himself out of his chair and tackled Derek, sending them both flying. He pounds his small fists into Derek's face, vision obscured with tears, knowing only the desire to hurtpunishpaykillkillkill that thrums through him. He doesn't see the boot of the other players coming towards his head before everything goes dark.

When he wakes up, he won't be able to speak past the rage clogging his throat. The nurse will fuss over him, but he'll only have eyes for the other prone figure in the room, beaten nearly black and blue. Tia Alma will show up in an hour and take him home, tut and fuss over him. They won't ever talk about it again, except for when she comes into his room at night and he curls up into her arms, sobbing and shaking.

That first time Hank fights someone, he learns about protecting the people you love.

2.

Five years later, he's a proud graduate of Harvard University. There are men in black suits coming to talk to him, shady and shifty eyed. There's a certain excitement in it though, the recognition that he can do something great. His first meeting is with a man who only calls himself Brown. Tall and somber, Brown reminds him of his father, and some subconscious part of Hank wants his approval. They meet in his engineering classroom, and Hank shifts nervously as Brown shifts through his papers and examines his work. For a sixteen year old, it's a pretty big deal. Brown finishes his browse and turns to hank, admiration in his eyes. A little part of Hank relaxes under the respect and he gives him a nervous smile.

'Well son, we'd be honored to have you work for us, I'll just have to fax these over to the boss, and you'll be a member of the American government'

Hank nods excitedly and they talk details. Eventually though, Hank has to bring up the point he promised himself he'd make. Brown pulls off his glasses and rubs at them with his coattail, before agreeing to do the best he can.

A week later, Hank will stare for hours at the folder sitting on his desk. There's a blurry photograph of a teenager with long hair smiling at the camera. For a second, Hank will rage against the man who brought him this folder, the information he doesn't want to know. Eventually though, He'll pick it up and give it to Tia Alma, and she'll cry and laugh at the same time. The way she thanks him for the picture of her son doesn't quite overcome the tears in her eyes and Hank eats alone that night, glaring dry eyed at the wall, unsure of who to blame.

The second Hank fights someone, he knows he can't win, because the opponent is too large and great for him to fight, and he can't figure out if he's fighting humanities weakness or the sorrow inside him. He learns about acceptance and learning to live with failures that aren't your fault.

3.

Hank is old enough now to know that he's unnatural in yet another way. At the age of 18, he hasn't even kissed a girl – in fact, he's never had the desire too. The friends he's made in the government (all wide eyed socially stupid geniuses like him) constantly tease him about his virginity. George Parker smiles at him across the table sometimes though, and it makes Hanks heart skip a beat. George is broad and strong and brave, the complete opposite of Hank. It's George who coaxes him out of the lab when he doesn't leave for two days, and its George who convinces him to eat and sleep regularly. George is also the only one Hank introduces to Tia Alma, who gives him a shrewd look and mutters about her son again (although now its tempered with happiness, a peace reached by knowing her son has reached the city of god) Hank blushes awkwardly around George, and stutters and bumbles. Its quite irritating actually, but George seems to find endless humor in it.

George smells like honeysuckle and acid. George is the first one Hank shows his feet too. George is the one person who calls him beautiful and kisses him, and it builds heavyhotdangerous into the night.

When Hank ups the next morning, tangled under arms and legs, he smiles a little and buries his head into the crook of his head. He imagines somewhere where they can be themselves, once and for all. They spend a year snatching little moments – a fumbled kiss in the closet, a night here and there. For the first time, Hank understands what loving someone to the end means, and nothing (he thinks) can go wrong.

(Fate croons people into a slumber, and then she slips a knife into their hearts. It's a fact of the universe that Hank hasn't learnt yet)

A year later Hank gets a call in the middle of the night – there's been an accident in the lab. Five dead, seven critically injured. He grabs his glasses and coat and runs to the hospital, heart caught in his lungs. When he arrives, he can barely recognize George, shrouded behind burns and bandages. The smell of antiseptic burns his nose, but he grabs onto Georges hand and doesn't let go. George squeezes back a little, and they sit like that, listening to the beep and hum of the machines.

(Distantly, Hank offers his prayers up to anyone who listen. He bargains and pleads with someone he's sure is there – believing in a god is impossible when your first words are how and why. Science and logic is what Hank lives with, but he can't help promising)

They whisper words to each other, things that Hank still carries in his heart to this day.

(George tells him he's beautiful one last time, and Hank talks about the places they're going to go after George gets out of the hospital. Neither mentions the grim looks the nurses pass over their heads)

A day later, there's a white sheet being pulled over George's head and Hank stares numbly at his blackboard. He scratches out the last equation into Georges work and adds another one. Then he leaves the office and punches the man who set off the explosion in the face. A week later, he's being introduced to the Man in Black, who talks about mutants and people who are special in a way that makes it sound like they're gods among men.

(Hanks met plenty of people he would consider gods among men, but he's never met anyone who could be like him – Tia Alma perhaps, who's been through so much but still walks proud, Brown, who looked past his geeky exterior and granted a young boys request, George, brave smart beautiful George, who loved a monster and never made Hank try to hide. All of them, but not Hank.)

The third time Hank fights someone, he wins easily, but he loses everything else. He learns about living with a hole in your heart and rolling with the punches life gives you.

4.

Alex.

Enough said.

5.

Hanks legs shake as he climbs over the broken glass into their common room. There are smears of blood of blood over by the door, but the bodies are gone.

(Distantly Hank acknowledges that people are going to be getting calls in the middle of the night again. But he doesn't know them, so he can't bother to care)

His hands tremble as he picks up the phone on the floor, rights it and sinks behind the counter. Woodenly he clicks in the number and holds up the phone to his ear.

It only takes one ring before the phones picked and an irate Spanish voice is shouting in his ear.

'Tia Alma! Its me!"

"Hank? Gracias a dios! Where have you been? Do you have any idea how worried I was?" Hank presses a hand to his eyes and laughs shakily as she berates. After the events of last night, he would give anything to not have this conversation with her. Eventually she peters off

"How are you? All I know is that something happened at – que english? The base?"

Hank swallows and stares at the wall. "Yeah – we were attacked"

There's a minute of enraged cursing before hank continues on "The mutants I told you about – Shaw? He managed to attack us"

"Estas bien? No one is hurt?"

For a second, Hanks stuck in the past. Darwin stretching a hand out towards Alex. Angels final tear. The screams of Raven in his ear as the sickening thumps of people he had known and liked, for the most part (before Charles came marching into his life with a handshake and a few careless words) as they hit the ground. He blows out a breath.

"There's – quite a lot of people died. I'm- I'm okay"

There's a minute of silence on the phone. Hank pictures her standing at the table, her hand over her mouth. Tiny and aged, but still beautiful, the cross Hank had given her gleaming on her neck. Her voice sounds tinny across the phone as she asks him for details and assurances. It's a conversation he has on autopilot.

How does he tell her what comes next?

"Tia, I have to go away for a while. The professor, Charles, he thinks that we can help stop Shaw"

She remains silent.

"I'll be back soon, I just – I have to go okay? I have to stop him, He's-"

Hank can still see the gleam in Shaw's eyes, the triumph in his voice. The insanity as it burned away, made all the stronger by the little devils that sat on his shoulders)

"He has to be stopped. Otherwise something very bad is going to happen"

Hank is a scientist, he understands cause and function, knows just what humanity is capable of.

A line away, Tia Alma takes a deep breath "Will you be safe?"

He laughs (safe? Was he ever safe? Is that why he's hidden his entire life?)

"Yes" he says, "yes, it's going to be like a vacation actually. I'll be back before you know it"

"You better, Pequoño Osa, and I'll make that rice you like so much, yes?"

The use of her old nickname for him cracks his heart.

"Tia – your son-"

"Si?"

Hank swallows. How does he tell her that her son had smiled at him before he had blasted them with the hurricanes that grew in his palms? How does he tell her that he had seen her son murder with no compunction? He opens his mouth, and then closes it.

It isn't the first time Hanks thought about killing someone. It is however, the first time he vows to finish the job. Tia Alma can never find out her son is alive, or it would break her heart. He digs out the pile of papers left on the table and finds the one with Quested stamped across the top in harsh red letters. Bloody words for a bloody man. Then he pulls out a black marker and methodically writes in the words that he first read over five years ago.

_This man is a mutant._

He opens his mouth again "I just – what kind of person do you think he would've been?"

"There's nothing good to come in thinking of what ifs" She tells him. He smiles at the wall and tells her goodbye. Then he very carefully unplugs the phone and sets it on top of the desk. He stands shakily and stretches his arms out. And then he grabs the table by the edges and flings it across the room.

Hank learns about what it feels like to accept that sometimes, life doesn't work the way you want it, and people who should be dead, don't stay dead.

And 1.

Hank is focusing very hard on not focusing on anything. He knows that if he does, he won't be able to stop the tirade of anger that simmers under his skin. He won't be able to stop the helplessness he feels bubbling in his chest or the nausea caused by the antiseptic. Silently, he watches the people sitting in the hospital room and counts why he's angry with them.

1. Raven. For being everything that Hank had wanted to be, who had managed to accept her skin, and who didn't need to anyway, a mutation like hers. What gave her the right to preach down to him about her looks when she could literally be anything she wanted to, while he was a monster.

2. Sean. For not understanding that sometimes, people just don't want that much coffee when they're sitting in an emergency room in a New York hospital and Charles might be dying and oh god, he just doesn't think he can handle anything to drink now.

3. Azazel. Azazel who is sitting awkwardly by the door, unsure of where to go. Raven had shifted aside and given him seat space. She had given him a tired smile at his surprise. But still, Azazel. For trying to fucking poke out his eye with his tail.

4. Moira. Pretty, confident Moira, staring the badge in her hand as if she's never looked at it before. Moira, who was only trying to do her job, Moira, just as lost as the rest of them now.

5. Janos, Janos or Riptide, or Poolboy, or whoever the fuck he is. For standing there and not understanding that his mother mourns his death and uncaring.

6. Alex. Alex who is warm and bright and smart and makes Hank feel things he hasn't felt since George. Alex, who hadn't flinched from him and he trusted him even though he's the monster he is now and who had the audacity to sit next to him in the hospital, even though Hank was radiating piss off with frightening intensity.

7. Angel. Exotic Angel, who had the potential to be so much, but couldn't get past all the looks men, gave her. Hank realizes he's being too harsh, but he can still hear her words and he can still see Darwin's eyes, so he isn't inclined to modify his thoughts.

8. Erik. Fucking Erik with his pessimism and past and revenge. Erik who had ignored the way Charles stared after him when he left the table. Erik, who had turned his back on Charles when he drove the coin through Shaw's brain – and honestly, he didn't deserve to be in that room, with Charles.

9. Charles. Brilliant Charles, who had loved everyone too much. Charles, who had given everything he had into trying to making Hank comfortable and who puttered around in his sweater vests and who didn't even think about giving up his life if it meant that others would be saved.

Hank knows they're at a crossroads now. Can feel it in the marrow of his bones. With their leaders gone, its up to them to make the next step. For a minute, Hank sits there and breathes.

In – anger, and pain and horror and sadness. Loss, fear.

Out – acceptance, forgiveness, the first step.

He opens his eyes and stands. He's spent his entire lifetime fighting – against death, against life, againstagainstagainst. He's tired, and he wants to go home, and he wants to sleep for a million years.

Janos eyes him wearily when he approaches. The man standing in front of him is tired, and beaten. There is fear and uncertainty hovering in his eyes. The beast inside of Hank gives one last grumble and dies down. His eyes look just like his mothers, and Hank will be damned if he has to live with that knowledge alone. He'll drag Janos by his hair if he has to.

(Hanks learnt a lot of things in his life – how to fight dirty, how to roll with punches, how to accept defeat and how to let go. He's learnt about loving someone and protecting the people he loves. He's learnt how to build serums that can give and stop life and he's learnt about dealing with six other people at the dinner table. He guesses he can learn to accommodate another, if he has too)

So he thrusts out a hand and smiles "Come on, there's someone I want you to meet"


End file.
